In a cloud environment, or in any computing network, failures or reduced performance along any number of “paths” between a source (e.g., a website server) and a user device can occur due to one or more of a host of events or causes, including, but not limited to, data traffic congestion, faulty hardware or hardware failure, insufficient network connections and/or nodes, electrical surges, natural or manmade disasters, inefficient routing protocols, and/or software glitches, etc.
At present, there are insufficient testing points and servers that accurately monitor segments of interest within computing networks, which might include various networks that are administratively separate from each other (i.e., controlled, operated, and/or maintained by different Internet service providers (“ISPs”)). Much of existing testing configurations for monitoring network performance encompass, but do not discount, network performance metrics contributed by segments of the computing network that lie outside of the purview of any particular Internet service provider to control and perform maintenance and repair.
In some cases, technicians may need to be called out to the customer premises and/or service locations at which the ISP's network equipment might be located, in order to monitor and diagnose problems with network connectivity and performance.
In other cases, because of insufficient monitoring of all network connections, even if less congested alternate “paths” exist, it is not possible or practical to easily and effectively identify such alternate “paths” for redirecting or rerouting the data traffic, especially as data congestion factors and effects can change rapidly and unexpectedly.
In sum, any existing networking performance monitoring systems either are inadequate to the task of accurately testing performance (and, in some cases, capacity) of particular segments of interest, are incapable of autonomously or automatically rerouting along higher capacity “paths,” are too costly to ensure adequate monitoring, and/or take too long to gather and analyze the appropriate network performance metrics.
Hence, there is a need for more robust and scalable network performance testing solutions.